So you’ve heard all about the #READdifferent campaign but you’re not sure where to start on your journey of literary exploration and discovery. We’re here to help! Each week we will be featuring a different theme or genre that you can use to #READdifferent at the 2015 AJC Decatur Book Festival.
Mystery-Thriller stories are some of the most enticing, enchanting, and edge-of-your-seat tales out there. Some take us to other worlds, while others are set in our own backyards. Not used to reading Mystery-Thriller books? Get out of your comfort zone and #READdifferent by checking out some of these hair-raising authors coming to the 2015 AJC DBF.
Brush Back, the latest in the V.I. Warshawshi series by Sara Paretsky, follows V.I. as she assists her ex-boyfriend in helping him prove that his mother—who just got out of jail for allegedly killing her daughter—is innocent. As V.I. returns to her childhood town and tries to get to the bottom of the incident, she is swarmed by the world of Illinois politics, her life is put at risk and the case goes down a windy road of twists and turns.
Brian Panowich comes to DBF with his book Bull Mountain, which centers on a family that is notorious for running a criminal drug empire in the North Georgia Mountains. One of the family’s sons Clayton distances himself from the outlaws and becomes a sheriff in a neighboring town. Coupled with stark epigraphs from Cormac McCarthy and Julius Caesar, Bull Mountain pits Clayton against his own family when a federal agent confronts him about taking down the drug ring once and for all.
Award-winning author Matt Bell brings to DBF this year his novel Scrapper, about a young man with a passion for foraging for scrap metal in Detroit. When Kelly one day comes across a kidnapped boy in the scrapyard, he takes it upon himself to solve the crime and avenge the boy’s kidnapping. Along the way, Kelly comes face-to-face with unexpected challenges, his own past, and a new side of Detroit he had never even imagined.
Robert B. Parker’s the Devil Wins, written by Reed Farrel Coleman, is the 14th installment in the Jesse Stone Novels. Jesse, the police chief of the town Paradise, is faced with a seemingly unexplainable mystery after three dead bodies are found in an abandoned warehouse: one is only hours old, while the other two are the skeletal remains of two teenage girls. Then, when a mother of one of the deceased comes into town to bury her daughter, she is mysteriously murdered. This novel follows Jesse as he digs deep into the past to uncover the connection behind the killings.
Last Ragged Breath, the latest in the Prosecutor Bell Elkins series by Julia Keller, chronicles Royce Dillard, a West Virginia native, on his trial for murder. It’s Bell’s hardest challenge yet, as Royce has faced immense tragedy in his life before and now lives in the country with only his dogs. This Southern thriller touches all of us in different ways, but promises to keep you enticed the whole way through.
Thrilled yet? Go to the Author List on the AJC DBF website to look for more authors, books, and opportunities to #READdifferent.